Wrong electric meter reading

Richardthewindowcleaner

Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum so just finding my way around and if this question is in the wrong place then sorry 🤦‍♂️..but any advice would save the shirt on my back.
i rent a small storage farm unit that I keep junk in, my landlord has never in many year sent me a electric bill until a couple of months back, it was back dated to November 2022 and has demanded a crazy £5300 bill, that in itself was a shock especially as most of the lights don’t work and that I hardly ever go into the unit. However after reading the bill and then checking the meter itself I see that what they gave me was a wrong meter reading, I had the old type of meter with the dials that look similar to the mileage reading on an old fashioned car. My understanding is that you read the first five digits from left to right and leave out the 6th digit, my landlord has included that 6th number, as you can imagine this will multiply the bill by the thousands. The problem is that no matter how much I try to explain to them and show them on the internet of how to read a meter, they are digging there hills in and threatening to start dept recovery process.. it’s getting to a desperate point now and not sure of what to do next…

Robin9

Could you send us a photo of the meter please

You say "in many year" -   when was the previous bill prepared and what was the reading then.

Richardthewindowcleaner

Well quite honestly I never have had a bill in the 9 years Iv rented the unit, they just chose a date in November 2022 as a start but never informed me until I got the crazy bill. so there never was a previous reading, although I did take a photo of the meter back in 2015 when I took up the lease, the first photo is 2015 and second one is from March this year.

Rodders53

That's a standard(ish) digital meter.  Only the red digit is / would be ignored (it doesn't appear to have digits, though).
Possibly a three phase meter (label says 4 wire 3x phase plus neutral)?  So the Landlord is reading the meter correctly.

Current read is 099919.
Your 2015 read was 060346.
Delta (difference) is 39,573 kWh.  (4,397 kWh per annum.  Roughly the same as a typical household consumes.)

£0.25 per kWh x 4397 = £1100 plus standing charges per annum.  But electric hasn't always been that expensive although Commercial electric rates are a law unto themselves and could be higher (and may attract 20% vat as well).

First turn off the main isolator on that consumer unit the meter feeds. Then lock up and go home...
When Landlord calls you to find out why various bits on the rest of the site have no electric you will know where to lay some blame for the metered electric consumption.

If you have electric space heating or electric immersion heaters on in the unit 24/7/365 then, even with working thermostatic controls they will eat electricity.

Check out what the breakers in the Consumer Unit feed (they may all have meaningful labels).

Robin9

I agree with Rodders and can't see a case to ignore the last digit.

I can't see why the L/L is going back to 2022 when you have leased the unit since until 2015 -but that may be to your benefit.

Also wonder what else the L/L is neglecting - is there a date of the next test due on the consumer unit?

How many units have you used since the bill was prepared ?

Richardthewindowcleaner

I will have a look later on today at how many units have been used, like I mentioned before I don’t often go there so in theory there shouldn’t have been many used at all. 

If the last digit is to be counted, what is the reason for the little horizontal lines on that digit and if you look closely you can see there is a slightly bigger gap separating it from the first 5 numbers 

Swipe

Richardthewindowcleaner said:

If the last digit is to be counted, what is the reason for the little horizontal lines on that digit and if you look closely you can see there is a slightly bigger gap separating it from the first 5 numbers 

The last digit is to be counted as per the number above it stating it is worth 1 kWh. The horizontal line is to line up with the notches on the last dial to show the increments less than 1 kWh that have been used.

Chris_b2z

What does your rental agreement / contract say about settling energy costs and billing?

Are any of the power sockets or lights connected via this meter external to the unit, ie outdoor floodlight?

You could try a kettle test. The rightmost digit should advance slightly in the 5 minutes it takes to boil.

Richardthewindowcleaner

There’s been a slight development, when I went to check the latest reading I found that the landlord has changed the old meter to a new digital one without me knowing, the meter is in different shed next door. So now other than a couple of photos I have no evidence that the meter is running correctly or not. My agreement states I should be billed quarterly,but as Iv said, until now Iv had no bills what do ever. Also could this come under the 12 month back billing rules.

Robin9

Richardthewindowcleaner said:

...................................... Also could this come under the 12 month back billing rules.

This does not apply  - you have a private contract.

Did you read your new meter ? Is there an instal date on it and perhaps an initial reading ?  I am thinking of working out a pro-rata consumption and you making an offer to the the L/L 

Chris_b2z

Richardthewindowcleaner said:

There’s been a slight development, when I went to check the latest reading I found that the landlord has changed the old meter to a new digital one without me knowing, the meter is in different shed next door. So now other than a couple of photos I have no evidence that the meter is running correctly or not. My agreement states I should be billed quarterly,but as Iv said, until now Iv had no bills what do ever. Also could this come under the 12 month back billing rules.

Talk to Citizens Advice.

The landlord's actions look rather suspicious especially if you had previously disputed the bill. From your usage description it sounds extremely unlikely that you could have knowingly consumed anywhere near the recorded amount.

There seems little doubt that this was an uncalibrated and out of date meter which the landlord had full access to. Any possibility of checking for accuracy or evidence of tampering has gone.

I would think you have a strong legal case if the landlord decides to pursue this £5,300 claim.